Wildfire
by wolfern
Summary: Alex always knew Tom was a pyromaniac. This confirmed it. Written for the SpyFest fic exchange, Dec 2019


**AN: For the SpyFest fic exchange, December 2019**_  
_

**_Alex always knew Tom was a pyromaniac. This confirmed it._ **

* * *

The first time Alex noticed his future best friend, the boy was slumped on a chair nursing two black eyes, a nosebleed, a split lip and a cigarette, the glowing end almost at his fingers. He seemed entranced watching the flecks of ash drop to the ground, the wisps of smoke twisting artlessly and disappearing, and most of all the bright yellow orange embers inching towards his bare skin.

"What do you want?"

"What're you doing?" Alex settled for.

"Nuthin'."

"Is that a cigarette?"

"Yeah." Tom's eyes burned with a silent '_And what of it?'_

"What's it like?"

The twelve-year-old shrugged.

"Where'd you get it?"

"Swiped it from my dad's desk."

"Why?"

Tom shrugged again. "Here." He stood and held out the stub. "Take it."

Alex took it, and dropped it a second later as his fingers registered the heat. "Hey!" he said, as Tom strode away.

The next time Alex met Tom was to help him off the ground. "What did they want?"

"They wanted cigarettes."

"Don't you smoke anyway?"

"I quit."

* * *

They were as close to the flame as they could get without singeing their eyebrows – and even then, Alex half-expected to find himself particularly lobster-skinned the next morning. It had been Jack's idea. She'd been delighted when he'd asked to bring Tom.

Ian was meant to come, but of course he'd had to pull out last minute, and honestly Alex didn't miss him. His uncle loved to show him cool tricks and let him try dangerous sports, but the man was an utter stickler for safety and would never have let them sit so close to the fire.

Later that night, Alex and Tom were sat comfortably watching the cooling embers. "I wish I could do this every day," Tom said, prodding the hot coals with a stick so that sparks flared into brief existence.

"What, camp?"

"Campfire."

"I thought you had a fireplace at home." Alex had visited once, briefly, when Tom had a cold, but he'd been quickly ushered out.

"It's electric and we're not allowed to use it."

"Then what's the point?"

Tom pursed his lips, squeezed in his cheeks, and then spat onto the embers. They sizzled.

"Well, we can go camping any time you like."

"Mum'd hate that."

"What d'you mean?"

"She hates when I'm away. I think that's part of why she and dad won't divorce. She doesn't want me spending time with him, without her."

"But you'll leave home sometime."

"Yeah. I think she thinks she can stop me running off like Jerry." He snorted.

"Will you?"

"I dunno. Maybe."

They stared into the dying light in silence. Alex stood. "We'd better get to sleep."

Tom nodded, but then licked his palm and picked up an ember. He held it for a few moments before tossing it back onto the others, causing a small explosion of sparks.

"Doesn't that hurt?"

It was too dark to see Tom's face as he stood. "Just have to pretend for a few seconds that it doesn't."

* * *

"I wish I could have seen it." Tom had his chin resting on his hands, eyes distant, picturing the flames engulfing the school labs. "It must have been amazing – all those chemicals in one place… Pity there wasn't any security camera footage!"

"Yeah," said Alex wryly. "That's one thought you have in common with the police."

"But I mean," said Tom, absentmindedly waving his hand through the yellow flame of the Bunsen burner, "Why did the fire start in the first place? And since the labs were clearly so dangerous, why are they still making us do experiments? With fire, even."

"It was a gas leak, I heard," said Alex, shifting on his seat. "And I don't know about you, but I've got my Bunsen burner licence."

Tom snickered. "I told you they don't care. It's like a pen licence – eventually they just let you. Hey, watch this." Glancing around, he mixed the flasks of water and ethanol, dipped his hand in, and then passed them through the fire again.

Alex almost flinched at the flames suddenly cloaking his friend's hand. For a second, he could only see his clone's body, lying prone as the flames enshrouded him. Tom laughed delightedly and then shook his hand as the flames died out, his skin untouched.

"Be careful," Alex blurted.

Tom stared at him. "Sorry. I didn't know it bothered you."

Alex swallowed. "It doesn't. Forget it." He was beginning to see why Ian had been so uptight about safety.

"Then why'd you say it?" Tom was smiling, but Alex could see the edge beneath his words. He knew his friend hated when his parents tried to pretend they weren't fighting every day, when they told him to forget what he'd heard, because Mummy Hadn't Meant It, or Dad Was Just Having a Bad Day.

He forced a laugh. "I think Jack's kitchen disasters have scarred me for life."

Tom held his gaze, and then turned back to the flame expressionlessly. He ripped a strip from his notebook, and dipped that instead into the ethanol mixture. "Sure," he said, passing the paper through the flame and watching it blaze without burning. The longer Alex watched, the more he felt the urge to hold his own hand in the fire. To know what it felt like – maybe that was why Tom did it: to know what it was to burn.

* * *

Alex lay in his hospital bed, watching Tom consume the grapes he'd brought. The soft white walls and bedsheets were a world away from the Desmond McCain-shaped inferno Alex had closed his eyes to when he'd passed out. It was funny how the mind forgot so quickly, as if it knew that remembering would stop Alex from continuing on. He could remember the sight, the smell of the flames, but he couldn't summon the feel of his skin melting. Perhaps he'd already been unconscious. With the snow falling silently outside his window, it was almost like a movie he'd watched once, except when he moved and sparked new pain.

"Hungry, are you?" he prompted Tom.

"Mmmf." Tom swallowed his mouthful. "Haven't had breakfast yet."

"I'm touched."

His friend snorted. "Just wanted to leave the house before I got caught in a firefight."

"No 'New year, new start'?"

Tom raised an eyebrow. "Unlike any of the other new years we've had?" He tossed the remaining grapes to Alex, and took a lighter from his pocket. Flicked open the cap, and looked up at Alex, catching him staring.

Alex couldn't avert his gaze from Tom's thumb resting on the flint wheel.

"Jack told me what happened."

"All of it?"

"Just the injuries." He tilted his head. "How do you feel about fire at the moment?"

Alex shrugged. His back burned and itched under the dressings.

_Click._

It was too like the click of the exploding pen he'd used to ignite the fuel drums. Tom met his eyes expressionlessly as Alex flinched. His cheeks blazed but he kept his breathing steady even as the other boy leant into the flame and breathed in. The flame flickered deferentially towards his open mouth. Something dark haunted Tom's face on his exhale, as he stuck out his tongue and slowly passed it through the flame.

Alex fought off a shudder and kept his eyes firmly focussed on the flicker reflecting in his friend's blank eyes. Tom snapped the lighter shut.

"What's your point?" Alex finally said, taking a breath.

"Thought you could do with some exposure therapy before the doctors release you to the wild."

"Right."

Tom grinned. He tossed the lighter onto Alex's sheets.

"What's this?"

"What do you think? Your turn." Tom's eyes were alight.

Alex picked the lighter off his bedsheets and turned it over in his fingers. It was a cheap, plastic device, and though it wasn't particularly heavy, Alex felt its weight like lava in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed.

"Go on, then." Tom leant forwards on his chair.

With the same determination that made him keep going during missions, not knowing if what would come next was worse than what was already happening, he flicked the wheel and this time didn't flinch at the flame, which flickered in and then out as he let the wheel go.

He met his friend's eyes again as Tom's grin widened. "More."

But Alex's mind was filled with the smell of burning flesh – the crackles of boiling fat – the hoarse, fading screams of a smoke-choked throat. The lighter fell to the bed.

Tom's grin faded. He snatched the lighter back and left.

* * *

The next time Alex saw Tom, the lighter was flung onto his bed like a gauntlet. Alex picked it up thoughtfully as his friend dropped into a chair. Alex flipped the cap open and watched Tom's eyes betray the apparent disinterest of his slump.

He'd been waiting for this.

Slowly, deliberately, he took a mouthful of the powder he'd had ready. With a _click _the hospital room ignited in the furnace of his memory. He saw the sparks and the heat shimmering over Tom and whistled the burning corn starch towards him.

Instinctively, Tom stood and stretched out his hand to meet the flames licking at his fingertips. Fire, real and imagined, engulfed him – embraced him.

With another _click _the flames vanished and Alex could breathe.

Tom was smiling, unhurt. In his eyes flickered the only remnants of the fire. Alex tossed the lighter back.

* * *

They were never coming back here. For only a few hours, the sun was dead, waiting to return hotter than ever. The wind across the trees could only spread the oppressive heat of the day, which lingered still, gnawing like a tired dog, gentle but relentless.

"We'll burn it down," gritted Tom. "Get rid of the wasps. The whole town's infected anyway. Probably drowning in their own blood already."

Alex could just make out the silhouettes of the simple wooden huts through the disappearing darkness. The roofs were tin, but the walls were timber and had dried over decades, ready for a spark. Still – "The whole town?"

"Infection," Tom reminded him. The lighter appeared like a question in his hand.

The scorching, dusty air burned Alex's throat as he considered.

"Fire's the only way."

Tom tossed him his spare lighter.

_Click_.

The fire spread quickly, emboldened by the wind and dust. A single spark was enough to spread the blaze to another hut and soon the night was bright again. The scorching tin roofs screamed as they warped in the heat, a cacophony of discord on top of the thunder crack of wood.

One by one, then in droves came the infected, dressed for summer, their skin exposed and blistering. The smell of burnt hair and roasting fat came with the scorching air. Alex looked up at the smoke-darkened sky, finding it hard to breathe. Together with Tom, he ran to the beach where the oily black ocean beckoned. They went in up to their knees, the water body-heat and warming, but no one came after them. As they watched, the people dropped like the wasps that had infected them, uncomprehending of the hell that had taken over their town, their parasite-infected minds unable to make the vital plans to live.

Alex's lips and eyes were scorched, his mouth parched. Unthinking, he scooped the seawater to drink, and then vomited. Tom didn't notice, too busy watching the town. It didn't take long until the fire devoured the village, which collapsed in a hell of thunder and ash.

Beside Alex, Tom laughed, his eyes alight and flickering in the glow of the furnace.

"Let's get out of here," Alex said quietly, breathing in the smell of success. He looked down and though it wasn't particularly heavy, he felt the weight of the lighter's comforting warmth.

He held it out to Tom, who took it, turning it over thoughtfully. Then he tossed it back to Alex.

"Keep it."


End file.
